Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
With a portable multimedia device with a display screen and audio output, people can browse the Internet, view videos, play games, and accomplish other similar tasks from practically anywhere. There is a user-friendliness/nuisance trade-off however. As screens increase in size to be easier on the eyes and allow a more immersive viewing environment, the displays are less private, and can be a nuisance to others around the viewer. Decreasing the screen size, on the other hand, is more private and less of a nuisance, but the images will be increasingly harder to see.
Personal viewing devices attached to, or integrated with, glasses, goggles, and other eyewear solve some of the nuisance and privacy issues, but a host of other issues may arise in their place with conventional approaches. One such issue is security, where broadcasting media wirelessly to headsets can allow the wireless connection to be intercepted. Another issue is one that has inhibited overall adoption and use of virtual reality headsets. Namely, a visual effect occurs with virtual reality headsets where an entire image is viewed in the glasses or a heads-up display at a fixed size, but moves as the user moves his/her head, which can cause discomfort to users, even nausea and motion-like sickness in some cases.
Another possibility is to use image projection technology to project a personal display onto any appropriate surface that is in front of the viewer. This option suffers from similar drawbacks as the personal display devices, the main drawbacks being privacy and nuisance concerns as mini projectors, attached to the headsets or not, project images and/or video onto publicly viewable display surfaces. Moreover, since overlapping video/images from different projections affects the viewability of both, where wall space is not unlimited, e.g., where a large number of people are present relative to wall space, different users may be forced to compete to use the limited space in an, as of yet, unregulated manner.